The Punjab government claims that the stay orders issued by the Lahore High Court (LHC) have allowed sugar mill owners and speculators to manipulate the market, making billions in the process as sugar prices rise across the nation to new high levels.
For Punjab, the federal government’s Ministry of National Food Security and Research announced ex-mill prices of Rs 96.08 per kg and retail prices of Rs 99.33 per kg on April 30 of this year.
Nevertheless, the LHC acted swiftly and put the decision on hold just four days later. On May 4, the court lifted the suspension, arguing that price fixing was a provincial matter.
Another stay order issued on August 15 prevents the provincial government from keeping an eye on the sugar supply chain, which encourages smuggling to Afghanistan. But it didn’t stop there.
Officials briefed interim chief minister Mohsin Naqvi on the situation, explaining that the LHC’s orders prevented the government agencies from monitoring the supply chain and ensuring that sugar was available at the set price.
The sugar mills’ records might even be available to the government, they continued.
The result is that the sugar hoarders, with the help of the millers, are free to act as they please, pushing up the price of sugar significantly and making life difficult for the populace.
According to the information provided during the briefing on Tuesday, millers have extorted more than Rs 55 billion from consumers by selling roughly 1.4 million metric tonnes of sugar since May 4 at an additional price of Rs 40 per kg.
7.730 million metric tonnes of sugar, including carryover stocks, were produced during the current crushing season, of which 5.32 million metric tonnes were stored in Punjab.
These were adequate to meet the needs of the “integrated region,” which included Gilgit-Baltistan, parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Azad Kashmir, and Punjab, as well as Islamabad.
On the other hand, the price of sugar on Tuesday reached a high of Rs 200 per kg in a number of regions of the nation. In Quetta, it is offered for sale at Rs230 per kg.
The price ranges between Rs 185 and Rs 190 in Islamabad, Sargodha, Gujranwala, and Lahore, while it is Rs 180 per kg in Multan.
